Ex-Teamster Williams Arrives in Limousine to Begin His Term

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — Former Teamsters President Roy L. Williams surrendered Tuesday at a federal prison to begin serving a 10-year term for a 1982 conviction of conspiring to bribe a U.S. senator.

The ailing Williams, 70, arrived at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in a limousine about a half hour before a 5 p.m. deadline and was taken into the prison in his wheelchair.

Williams on Monday was ordered to report to the facility by U.S. District Judge Prentice Marshall in Chicago, who refused to reduce the sentence that Williams' attorney claims is "a death sentence."

Williams, who suffers from emphysema and heart trouble and has appeared in court with an oxygen tank and in a wheelchair, will be confined in a single room at the medical center, said George Diffenbaucher, chief of social services at the hospital.

Williams and four others were convicted in December, 1982, of conspiracy to bribe former Sen. Howard W. Cannon (D-Nev.) to influence a trucking regulation bill. Williams was given a provisional sentence of 55 years in prison, but the sentence was later reduced to 10 years. He was forced to give up the union presidency after his conviction.

A month after the conviction, one defendant, Allen Dorfman, was slain. The three others are in prison. Cannon was not accused of any wrongdoing.